The central city and South Brisbane top the list of inner-city suburbs that generate the most money – per parking meter space – for the council.

The figures – released for the first time – show where parking meter revenue is generated around the inner-city and also where parking fines are issued.

They show the council expects to receive $20.89 million from parking meters and $27.9 million from parking fines from across the River City in 2014-15.

It also shows a tripling of parking fines being waived over the past three years after mistakes by the council’s parking inspectors, Brisbane’s drivers or the parking meters.

On average the council received $7689.20 from each of the 619 parking meter spaces in Brisbane’s CBD.

That is 34 times the revenue received from each of the 544 parking meter spaces in Bowen Hills, the lowest parking meter revenue generator of Brisbane’s 21 inner-city suburbs with parking meters.

Fire safety technicians Rob Dixon and Greg Friss say their small business has received half a dozen parking meter fines while performing apartment checks in the inner-city in the past 12 months.

“We can park in loading zones, but we are only allowed 20 minutes,” Mr Dixon said.

“After that 20-minute period they end up throwing a fine on your car. It’s happened at least six times in the last year,” he said.

“So we get stung quite a bit.”

Brisbane’s inner-city parking meter hotspots

• Brisbane CBD - 619 metered spaces - $7689 per space or $4,759,491 in total
• South Brisbane – 991 metered spaces - $3409 per space or $3,377,957 in total
• Fortitude Valley - 782 metered spaces -$2921 per space or $2,284,529 in total
• Herston – 223 metered spaces -$2572 per space or $573,497 in total
• Spring Hill – 969 metered spaces - $2536 per space or $2,457,255 in total  
• Petrie Terrace – 32 metered spaces - $2322 per space, or $74,291 in total
• Milton – 249 metered spaces - $2315 per space, or $4576, 432 in total
• Teneriffe – 284 metered spaces - $1869 per space, or $530,602 in total
• Kelvin Grove – 245 metered spaces - $1738 per space, or $425, 782 in total
• West End - 605 metered spaces - $1257 per space - $957,048.18 

Where parking fines are issued

The Brisbane CBD is where most parking fines were issued (55,058) in the past 12 months, followed by South Brisbane (30,694) Fortitude Valley (25,799) and Spring Hill (13,880).

Other big hit parking fine suburbs are Woolloongabba (7982) near the Brisbane Cricket Ground, Milton (7836) near Suncorp Stadium, Bowen Hills (7569) near the Royal Brisbane Hospital complex, Newstead (7593) near its CityCat terminal and restaurants, and West End (6019) which has access to the CityGlider and ferries is near restaurants and within walking distance to town.

Waived parking fines triple because of mistakes

The figures also show a tripling of parking fines that have been waived since 2011, because of mistakes by the driver or the parking meter.

In 2010-11 there were 579 parking fines waived because parking inspectors made a mistake.

However by 2013-14, that number almost tripled to 1514.

The council’s Lifestyle Committee chair Krista Adams said there were four main reasons why parking fines were waived:

• An incorrect registration number was entered into a parking meter
• Compassionate grounds in the case of a medical emergency
• The owner’s residential parking permit was not displayed in the vehicle at the time of inspection; and
• The meter was faulty and the person could not enter their registration number correctly.

Brisbane City Council has a three-stage process for reviewing parking meter fines, Cr Adams said.

“The rise in number of parking infringements that council waived on review reflects the increase in requests that council received to review parking infringements,” Cr Adams said.

“In 2013 the number of complaints requesting action on illegal parking increased by 25 per cent."

Cr Adams said the council had cracked down on illegal parking after an increase in complaints.

The top 5 parking complaints:

1. The parking meter is broken
2. A vehicle is illegally parked
3. A vehicle is abandoned
4. A heavy vehicle or a long vehicle is wrongly parked
5. A parking meter has made a mistake.

Overall, Brisbane’s residents are now more likely to appeal parking infringements than they were in 2010-11.

The number of appeals lodged against a parking fine increased from 19,874 in 2010-11 to 33,191 in 203-14.

The number of successful challenges also almost doubled from 6414 in 2010-11 to 11,169 in 2013-14.

In June, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk announced a comprehensive review of Brisbane’s parking.

A Parking Taskforce, chaired by deputy mayor Cr Adrian Schrinner, will investigate parking around schools, the residential parking permits, inner-city parking, suburban parking, parking around shopping centres and the boundaries around the city’s regulated parking zones.

There will be no increase in parking meter fees while the review is underway, Cr Quirk said.

The data was released after exhaustive questions on notice lodged by Brisbane City Council’s Labor opposition.